Amir Khan’t afford to lose

FORMER world champion Amir Khan has accepted he will have nowhere to turn if he falls to a third consecutive defeat against Carlos Molina in Los Angeles on December 15 and believes that a failure to win will end a potential fight with Ricky Hatton.

In his last two fights, Khan dropped a controversial decision to drugs cheat Lamont Peterson before suffering a fourth-round knockout defeat to Danny Garcia to prompt a change of training camp and trainer from Freddie Roach to Virgil Hunter. That he is not yet talking up a fight with Hatton for a sport so reliant upon promotion and hype perhaps highlights his focus and this, coupled with mentions of world titles over money, shows that Khan recognises he can no longer take his career for granted.

“I don’t want to lose this one, I’m not going to lose this one,” said Khan, who did not discuss Monday’s car-jacking incident. “I don’t want to be in that position where, if I lose it, it’ll be where can I go from here?

“For me, this is make or break. Everything’s in this fight for me, that’s why I changed everything.

“Maybe Hatton [is a future fight], if he’s a world champion. I want Ricky to be on a good winning streak, I want to be on a good winning streak, so that it’s worth fighting. If I lose and Ricky loses then it’s pointless.”